Jessica Avery

Redefining Success

I recently had this discussion with a close friend, on what ‘success’ is and how you recognise it. She had just turned 30 and I am a few months from that milestone, I’m sure we are far from the only friends entering a new decade who have had the reviewed and assessed whether we are where we thought we would be. My friend said she considered me successful, looking at aspects such as my career, relationship, living arrangements etc., but I did not. That’s not to say I am unsatisfied with my current situation, not by any means but ‘success’ is one of those terms we rarely attribute to ourselves. Success is an aspirational, and ever moving goalpost. Most of us know what our personal version of success looks like but how many people actually stop and say, “Right, that’s it. Nothing more to do”? Redefining what success looks like as our situation changes is part of life and necessary for continued improvement… just as long as you can view that moving goalpost as a new opportunity and not as an impossible distance that makes you a failure.